Abstract
Work creates and transforms the social world. Its least predictable and most admired incarnation, artistic and scientific invention, seems to defy causal analysis and statistical regularities. Much more than the exploration of the conscious and subconscious processes of individual inventiveness, it is the social ecology of creative work that gives rise to sociological analysis. The analysis proposed by Pierre-Michel Menger distinguishes three essential characteristics: unlimited differentiation of production, competitive mechanisms that exploit the uncertainty of success, and a disproportionate concentration of earnings and reputations.
